John Platallero, EventBooking

EventBooking is an online application that allows for agencies to book events at top level arenas. John idea for this business came in the mid 90’s when he realized he could merge two things he was fascinated with—musical entertainment and the internet.

While John was working fulltime for Alcoa he was also helping book concerts on the side as a hobby. He realized that sometimes it would take so long to communicate with venues about availability that it was possible to miss out on booking opportunities. The internet was just starting to be used by the general public and no one really thought about it as an application yet. John’s idea was very innovative and almost ahead of the technology and learning curve.

At this point in time Alcoa was beginning to hit some hard times and John’s supervisor saw an opportunity. He planned a layoff for John that would allow him to pursue his dream and also paid for 75% of his MBA degree. During John’s last semester while most students were interviewing for jobs, John was raising capital for his new business starting with friends and family. The first employees that John brought in were 2 sales people and 1 programmer.

One of Johns early lessons was that he was pursuing the wrong target. He originally thought that if he could get the endorsement of the agencies the venues would come on board. What he learned was that the venues didn’t really see value in changing their processes and using an online calendar instead of their hardcopy planners. John changed the entire focus of the business so that venues were the customer and the focus was creating value for them. He really learned to listen to his customer and find out what they valued. This truly paid off as EventBooking currently serves 80% of the top US venues and customer satisfaction is very high. Now that they have captured many of the top venues they can begin to pursue the agencies once more.

EventBooking is positioned for growth into new market segments. They have recently started including specialized software for conference centers and Disney tours, and are considering many other segments for the future. As EventBooking currently does not do any marketing or advertising, John is considering including those functions in the business in order to move into new markets.

John was a very enjoyable speaker because of his passion and excitement for his business. His hard work and dedication is evident in the success and potential of the business.